Pike County inmate who escaped sentenced

The Pike County jail trustee who escaped from custody while on work detail in December 2018 was sentenced Monday in Pike County Circuit Court.

Charles A. Harvey, 53, who once resided in Glenwood but court records show his last known address is Colorado Springs, Colo., pleaded guilty to felony charges of third-degree escape and failure to appear.

He was sentenced to 10 years in the Arkansas Department of Correction with three years suspended on the failure to appear charge and 10 years with three years suspended on the escape charge. Harvey also pleaded guilty to a felony drug charge from 2018 and was sentenced to six years in the ADC. Charges of commercial burglary and theft of property were “nolle prossed” in trade for the plea agreement.

All of Harvey’s sentencing will run concurrently for a total of seven years in prison. His Pike County sentences will also run concurrently with sentences recently handed down in Miller County.

Harvey was working on the city of Murfreesboro’s trash truck Dec. 28, 2018 when he escaped on foot.

Sheriff Travis Hill said Harvey had been picked up at the jail around 2 a.m. to work with the city sanitation crew. The crew had made one round and had then went to the city shop behind the old chicken processing plant for a break from 6-6:30 a.m. Hill said Harvey apparently went outside to urinate and was not seen again by the crew members.

According to one of the sanitation workers, Harvey had left the jail that morning carrying a coat with a pair of tennis shoes wrapped inside. When Harvey failed to return from his bathroom break after 10 minutes or so, the workers went looking and only found the coat left behind in the garbage truck.

Harvey was in the county jail awaiting a court date after he was arrested in Glenwood and charged with felony commercial burglary and possession of drug paraphernalia and misdemeanor theft of property and possessing an instrument of crime.